In 2013, I went on a trip to Rocky Mountain National Park. I was three years into being a photography enthusiast, I had a Canon SX500 IS that I got for my 16th birthday, and I had been teaching myself manual controls on the camera. Going to the mountains was the ultimate test of my developing skills with this small but powerful camera.
I was shooting one of the most incredible natural landscapes in North America I had a small tripod and essentially no hiking experience. It was a new experience all-together.
My family went back in 2014 to explore the park further. I had grown more as a photographer, and by then I already knew I wanted to go to school for art (at the time, graphic design).
Some of those photographs remain some of my favorite photographs I’ve ever made. Are they anything gallery-worthy or “award-winning”? absolutely not. Rather, they’re those photos that told me I was onto something — and ultimately led me to becoming the photographer I am now.
In 2018, I started shooting photos that later became the catalyst to my first large body of work, Arbor, Neighbor. A foggy morning on January 21, 2018 with a small handful of images led to the creation of the 60 photographs used in the series.
I was hiking and shooting photos nearly every week in 2018. I went on a nine-day road trip that year; I was in the Rocky Mountain National Park yet again while many of my friends were still taking finals. My opportunity to photograph not only the Rockies again for the third time, but the Tetons, Yellowstone and Devil’s Tower was one that I will never forget.
But maybe I went too far with my landscape photography in 2018. Maybe I was too gung-ho about being a landscape photographer that once I started shooting more vernacular photographs, I switched lanes entirely. I stopped shooting landscape and began shooting, well, the vernacular landscape.
I’ve always been one to get interested in something and go all-in. I’ve been like that since I was a child, with interests in Star Wars, Halo, Pokemon, and so on. Photography is no different. Not only about the medium, but about the styles I shoot.
I always say that “I’m a landscape photographer at heart,” but don’t go out and shoot the natural landscape anymore. I haven’t been to a state park or national park in months. I have only a very small handful of traditional landscape photos from this year (including a couple large-format black and white photos in Starved Rock). However, that small handful of photographs hasn’t really filled that void I have been ignoring.
Not only have I been missing this piece of me as a photographer, but I also believe that it has taken a health toll on me. While I was out hiking almost every weekend shooting in 2018, I was exercising, burning calories and I was in relatively good shape. My endurance was higher, and I felt better overall. This year, i’ve been a lump. The extent of my “hiking” has been walking around a small area of the city (being my university, for the first half of the year) and walking up and down a couple flights of stairs.
This is likely the biggest goal of the coming new decade for me. Get out — hike more — shoot more landscape. Remember my roots, and find that balance between my vernacular photography i’ve been doing almost all of 2019, with my slow, controlled tripod-made landscape photographs.
In 2020, and on, I will make this happen. I have built a list, that is still growing, made up of state and national parks, natural areas, forests, and monuments to hike in and photograph within the Midwest. For the start of it all, I’ll be keeping things pretty close to home. No more than three hours away (maybe three and a half) on the interstate, and I would take the “long way,” using US and state highways instead of the dreaded interstate to get there. This will allow me to explore the cities and towns on the way to my destination, letting me shoot my vernacular photography then, and once I make it to my destination of the state or national park, I’ll break out the tripod, hiking boots and flannel to begin my exploration for a more traditional artistic view.
And to top it all off, I’ll be continuing to shoot film while I’m out there. I’m hoping that I can budget more for film stock and developing, make use of that beefy RB67 and my beloved X370, but, of course, using my workhorse 6D MKII (especially for digital doubles, in case the film photos fail).
I believe this is more than just a new year’s resolution. I believe this will help better myself physically, mentally, and artistically. It will take me back to my roots, back to the kind of photography that sparked my passion so many years ago.